Abu Dhabi Might Host Women's World Championship

The situation around the suspended Women's World Championship has become a bit clearer. The tournament can take place in Abu Dhabi, as Kirsan Ilyumzhinov told the Russian ITAR TASS news agency on September 25.

"Abu Dhabi wants to host the Women's Chess Championship - at least, they have sent us the official bid. Prior to that, we had received bids from Moldova and Turkmenistan, and I even went to Moldova to discuss the matters with their Prime Minister as well as the other ministers and chess officials. However, Moldova failed to support the bid with the required money transfer when the time has come," Ilyumzhinov told ITAR TASS.

The FIDE President also said that Russia might bid for the tournament too. "Anyhow, I think the Championship problem will be solved within the next few days," he added.

"I will support Kirsan Ilyumzhinov because he did a lot for the development and popularization of chess," Itar-Tass quotes Sergey Karjakin. "A lot of strong competitions have been introduced thanks to him, World Cup, FIDE Grand Prix, World Rapid and Blitz championships among those."

FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has commented on the proposal by Magnus Carlsen to change the World Championship system. Since Ilyumzhinov's official website gives it in Russian only, Chess-News is providing the English translation:

The FIDE Women's World Team Championship is scheduled to be held from March 2-13 in Astana, Kazakhstan. At the moment the tournament has not got an official website; the participants haven't been officially announced, however, as Chess-News has found out the FIDE President nominee team has been determined, that is Turkish national women's team.